This invention pertains to a multi-purpose, small-garment bag structure, and more particularly, to such a structure which may be used in singular, or co-attached plural-bag, forms, to furnish useful, convenient organizational handling and management control for various small, personal garments such as socks and underwear. The utility of this structure presents itself especially well in laundering, post-laundering drying, at-home storing, and traveling situations, as will become apparent.
The proposed bag structure (or bag), for and in these various settings, offers a number of combinational functionalities including, as illustrations, (a) receiving small garments, such as socks and underwear, and containing them neatly organized for machine (or hand) laundering as well as for machine (or non-machine) drying, (b) holding dried, laundered garments within the bag for storage, (c) collecting dirtied garments in preparation for laundering, (d) hanging garments within the bag structure on an otherwise conventional clothing hanger for pre-use storage display (or for other reasons), etc., if desired (as in a closet), and (e) containing “bagged” garments for travel purposes. The bag structure of the invention includes appropriate, releasably interengageable interconnection structures, such as matable zipper structures, adjacent opposite top and bottom edges enabling roll-folding, and holding of the bag structure in a roll-folded condition for, as an example, garment-contained compactness in a travel situation.
To meet these purposes, and to offer these features, the basic bag structure of the invention includes a principal bag formed of, for example, an open-mesh nylon fabric, such as the material known as laundry mesh, having front and back sides, and including an openable/closable closure structure, such as a regular zipper structure, extending laterally generally centrally across the front side of the bag. This central, lateral zipper structure furnishes access to the bag's inside, wherein reinforcing-band-anchored (and thus basically positionally stabilized), clothing-article-holding clips, such as alligator-like clips, are furnished, pivotally mounted, in laterally extending rows (preferably, though not necessarily, two rows) for the purpose of gripping and selectively releasing small garments for containment in and retraction from the bag. The reinforcing band mentioned may be formed of the material known as belting tape. The laterally extending openable/closable closure structure provided for access to the inside of the bag is conveniently located positionally adjacent the locations of the preferred two rows of clips. The clips preferably are pivotally mounted on the mentioned reinforcing band material, with the pivot axes for these clips being substantially normal to the “plane” of the bag under circumstances wherein the bag's confronting front and back sides are in conditions essentially flattened adjacent each other.
The mentioned zipper structures that are disposed adjacent the top and bottom edges of the bag, made, for example from what is known as “matable”, separating zipper structures, enable plural bag structures to be connected for various purposes and conditions, such in a “vertical stack” for collective hanging as a plural-bag-structure unit, or for other reasons.
The upper edge of the proposed bag is reinforced with the same belting-type material mentioned above. Additionally, provided laterally centrally in this upper edge is a small access opening allowing for the passage of the hanging hook of a conventional clothing hanger whose main body may be disposed within the top of the bag to hold it and its contents for hanging purposes.
These and other features of the invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description of it which now follows is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.